ON OCTOBER 19th China reported that its economy grew by 6.7% in the third quarter. It would have been an unsurprising, reassuring headline, except that China had reported exactly the same figure for the previous quarter—and for the quarter before that. This freakish consistency invited the scorn of China’s many “data doubters”, who have long argued that it fudges its figures. China has expanded at the same pace from one quarter to the next on numerous occasions. But it has never before claimed to grow at exactly the same rate for three quarters in a row. Read more
